Rechargeable lithium ion batteries have been commercially available for well over a decade. Lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6) is commonly employed as the electrolyte salt in lithium ion batteries. Lithium hexafluorophosphate is characterized by solubility in aprotic solvents that results in an electrolyte characterized by high electrical conductivities and electrochemical stability. However, lithium hexafluorophosphate has limited applicability in future lithium ion batteries owing to a lack of thermal stability. In solution, lithium hexafluorophosphate dissociates into lithium fluoride and phosphorus pentafluoride which are then free to cationically polymerize electrolyte solvents. Additionally, lithium hexafluorophosphate releases hydrofluoric acid upon contact with moisture. Lithium hexafluorophosphate hydrolysis not only impedes safe handling but also leads to the degradation of transition metal oxides often utilized in electrochemical cells as a cathode material.
Considerable efforts have been made to develop alternative conducting salts to lithium hexafluorophosphate. Representative of these efforts is U.S. Pat. No. 4,505,997 that describes the use of lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide and lithium tris(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)methanide salts for use in battery electrolytes. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,874,616 and 6,319,428 describe the use of lithium perfluoro amide salts as battery electrolytes. While these salts display high anodic stability and form solutions having high electrical conductivity with organic carbonates, these same salts suffer the limitation of not adequately passivating aluminum. This is problematic since aluminum is a commonly used current collector for battery cathodes. Additionally, these salts tend to be comparatively difficult to produce and purify.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,210,830 and 6,423,454 describe perfluoro- or partially fluorinated-alkyl fluorophosphates as lithium ion battery electrolytes. While the thermal stability and hydrolysis resistance of these compounds as lithium salts are superior to lithium hexafluorophosphate, these salts are comparatively difficult to produce and as such significantly add to production costs for lithium ion batteries containing these salts. Barthel et al. (Journal of Electrochemical Society, 147, 2000, 21) teaches lithium organoborates as an electrolyte salt. These salts have met with limited acceptance owing to the inability to withstand high anodic potentials and the formation of unstable triorganoboranes.
DE 19829030 C1 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,506,516 describe lithium bisoxalatoborate as a battery electrolyte salt. Xu et al. (Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, 5, 2002, A26) note that lithium bisoxalatoborates readily passivate aluminum, show good thermal stability, yet have met with limited acceptance owing to the poor solubility of bisoxalatoborate in conventional lithium ion battery organic solvents.
Zhang et al. (Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry, 7, 2003, 147) teach the use of lithium tetrafluoroborate as a lithium ion battery electrolyte salt demonstrating good cycling performance at low temperatures. However, lithium tetrafluoroborate suffers from comparatively low ionic conductivity which limits battery power density.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,407,232 and Patent Application Publication Nos. 2002/0022181, 2002/0081496 and 2003/0100761 teach a class of cyclic compounds, some of which are lithium salts, which appear to offer lithium ion battery salts having good overall properties. However, the process of synthesizing such cells is inherently dangerous and inefficient.
Thus, there exists a need for an efficient process for the production of lithium ion battery salts.